Commonwealth Games: O'Dea brothers claim beach volleyball bronze for New Zealand

Ben O'Dea and Sam O'Dea of New Zealand celebrate winning the Beach Volleyball Men's Bronze Medal match. Photo / Getty

Brothers Sam and Ben O'Dea have won a beach volleyball bronze medal for New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games, defeating England's Chris Gregory and Jake Sheaf in the third-place play-off.

Ben O'Dea's troublesome shoulder didn't appear to be a big concern as siblings, grandsons of 1950s All Black Bob O'Dea, wrapped up the medal in straight sets 21-13 21-15.

"When you're playing in a big match like this, on centre court, adrenaline seems to be the best drug," Ben said.

New Zealand opened up a big lead early in the first set, going up 5-0 before England had a chance to catch their breath.

The sets took only 20 minutes each as New Zealand used their superior blocking skills to shut England out of the match.

Ben said the bronze medal was a good result after they lost a semi-final to Canada on Wednesday.

"I think we did a really good job of getting over that semi-final loss real quick," Ben said.

"Sometimes you can be really disappointed you lost a game and other times you can know you lost to one of the best teams in the world.

"If we'd played that match and not given it a really good crack, it would have been a lot harder a pill to swallow, but we played really, really well in parts but they were the better team on the day."

- NZN